


The Only Road We Know

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Hoshido | Birthright Route, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7489725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reina wasn't quite as terrifying as people made her out to be. Not even in the middle of a stormy night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Road We Know

Sometimes, it wasn’t the bad dreams that shook Mozu to the core. The good ones did. Always. And sometimes it wasn’t the good memories she smiled over but all the terrible ones, getting bullied and getting yelled at and the things she never would have thought she would miss.

They were in her, like a rat gnawing in the walls of a newly-built house.

That night she had been lulled into sitting with her mother, under the overhang of their roof. The harvest was over, the field was warm, and her mother’s hands were cutting her hair. The wind was blowing. It was warm.

And she thought: _This ain’t real._

When she woke up, she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe.

\- - -

Sometimes, she was like Oboro, and if she was working she could pretend that none of this had ever happened. Drying fish, helping with crops when they passed through a village, peeling strange vegetables they came across, washing clothes…just doing something with her hands put her into a dull quiet.

Late that night, though, there wasn’t any work to be had. The rain was beating hell out of the tent and the earth. There were no friendly villages in Nohr. And no one was awake enough to eat.

If she couldn’t work, she had to talk.

Saizo was snoring, snoozing even while he was crouching. He was probably saying to himself how he was keeping his eye on them cause he didn't trust them, but really, he needed rest just like anyone. Jakob, too, worked all day and couldn’t be shaken awake over nothing. Not when she already told him she would become stronger, and be the one protecting people. And crawling into Corrin’s bed like they were sister cats…it was just something a little kid would do, and now that they were in Nohr, this was no place for children.

Oboro was always awake at night. Others were, too, but finding their tents, especially in this storm, just seemed downright impossible.

But weren’t the animals awake? And right nearby? And good listeners to boot?

She crawled on her belly, slipped open the tent flap and got a faceful of storm. There were lights, though. The stable wasn’t more than a sprint away.

_You’ll get soaked to the bone_ , said a voice that sounded an awful lot like her mother’s.

The voice had also told her, months ago, to never go into Nohr. But there she was.

She got on her shoes, opened the tent and squinted to double-check where the animals were, and made a break for it. The rain blinded her, the thunder was snarling and her cheeks and hair and feet were freezing, but she pumped her legs as fast as she could go and made into the musky stable, the one she helped to put up.

“Any of y’all awake?” She got onto her toes to look over each door – the horses were snoozing, all of them brushed and even styled, probably thanks to that fox who hung around. But her heart only lifted when she saw the bird, glimmering white in the lantern light, standing out like an awfully beautiful ghost.

The birds at home had all been brown and dumpy. Beautiful singers, but just the same as anything. That morning - it felt like a long time ago in this weather - they hadn’t been singing.

The bird here was nothing she’d ever seen before. Downright beautiful. And awake. She cupped her hands under its chin for a moment and felt the chirrup in its throat, then searched her pockets. “Howdy, bird. I might have a little something for you…" The bird yanked its head away. "Aw, I’m not gonna muss up your feathers, I swear! I’ll keep you just as pretty as you were before! Now, I think I got some tasty jerky—"

Then the ground came to life.

Something dark snapped right up next to the bird and Mozu flung herself away, gagging on her own voice and smacking against a pole, scrabbling for something to defend herself with and just clenching cold wet fingers on her palms. But she caught the big sliced cross across the woman’s face.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to…oh, gosh…”

People were always telling her, _She’s not all bad… She doesn’t ever hurt the people on her side…_

Mozu swallowed thick.

_Just her enemies… She won’t hurt you… She only hurts them…_

Reina didn’t blink.

_—She’ll die one of these days if she isn’t dead already._

Then Reina closed her eyes. “So that’s why it’s been stubborn. You’ve been spoiling it on the sly.”

Reina swung up her legs and kicked open the door. She was wrapped in some dark blanket, strange doodles of monsters woven in rows and columns. The sort of thing seen on Lady Rinkah’s canteen. She flopped right back down, just as Mozu sagged onto the ground.

Like the rain, Mozu’s heart didn’t let up.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“The kinshi has always been afraid of thunder. A few times it’s broken down stables trying to escape. When it was a baby, I used to walk with it in my pocket out in storms. If I’m here, it won’t act up." She squirmed once. "The dirt is killing my back, though. Orochi’s right. I really am getting…”

“…Old?”

She could hear the consternation knotted in Reina’s brow. “I’m not that old. It’s only because of how cold it is.”

“I was about to say, I think the gods have been awful kind to you in that regard.”

Reina lifted her head, studied Mozu’s face. Combed her teeth with her tongue and smacked her lips. “You have a good attitude. Don’t lose it.” She nodded. “Now what are you doing here?”

“Just looking for some company. Your bird’s been real good company.”

“Orochi is usually awake.”

“Oboro, too. Just a week ago, right around this time of night, I was trying to see her and she thought I was a Nohrian…made this awful face that scared the wits out of me. Orochi’s been trying to read my…” She struggled with the word, “horrorscope, and that’s just… Well, it’s just…too frightening!”

Mozu hid her face into her knees because she knew she was going to turn red. After a few seconds, she picked her head up because Reina kept quiet. She didn’t even so much as chuckle.

“You’re lonely?”

“I get bad dreams," Mozu said. "Do you?”

“No. No dreams at all. Certainly not on dirt like this.”

Mozu felt stung, and stormy inside her stomach. Maybe envious. Envy was a rotten, awful feeling, like a draw of flies on her supper, and the best and only cure was generosity. She rifled through the pockets in her cape. “I don’t know about you, but eating something always makes it easier for me to sleep. I got some bear jerky if you want it?”

“I get the feeling this was meant for the bird.” Reina looked resigned, but sat up and stuck her hand out just long enough in the cold air to take the snack, then ducked back into her warm blanket.

Something cold splashed down Mozu’s back and she jumped, looked up the support – there was rain clinging to and falling down the wood.

I guess… Mozu looked through the pen’s open door. Awful cramped, but dry. _If she’s got some jerky in hand, she’s not so inclined to eat me…_

She crawled in, the bird cooing and settling right next to her, terribly warm and inspecting her hair. 

Reina eyed her. “So you’re avoiding everyone else because they’re too scary, and I’m not.”

“Well,” Mozu said, smiling, “you’re just cruel to our enemies. Besides, no one can really be bad if they ride a big old chicken into battle.”

The bird ruffled its feathers at the word _chicken,_ which only made it look like even more of one, which reminded her of the day some of the other kids let loose all the town chickens into her house, how he mother lether get back at the gang leader with a wallop across the head…

“It’s just been one bad thing after another since the day you joined us.”

“No.” She didn’t even have to think about it twice – Oboro making her the prettiest she ever felt in her life, Jakob and Saizo dropping their attitude around her and Corrin teaching her all about the world… “No, there’s been plenty of good.” She sounded much angrier than she thought she was and she couldn’t control it. “It’s not that. I’ve been happy here. I’ve had good moments.”

“You’re right,” Reina said softly. “We haven’t talked much, but I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Mozu looked up, wide-eyed. “That’s it?”

“What’s it?”

Mozu looked down, wiped some mud dripping off her shoes with her finger. “I just figured you were the type to put up a fight.”

“I wanted to know how you felt, not me.”

It went quiet. Mozu wasn’t sure if she could breach a discussion about her feelings even if she wanted to. Birds were better listeners. Reina would be the last person who would understand.

It took a second for Mozu to realize Reina had spoken.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“For what you went through, and what you’re going through now. It wasn’t your choice.”

“Corrin gave me a choice. She wanted to take me to another place to live, thought she could get me somewhere at the capital,” and for some reason that sounded more terrifying to her than anything in this war, “but when I’m feeling downer than dirt, I never get better just by staying put. I had to do something.”

“Everyone’s happy you stayed. There are never any complaints about dinner if it’s you making it.”

“Aw, I ain’t that good. I learned it all from this old man around town. If he had made it, we wouldn’t be so hungry all the time. He would’ve bagged a huge boar – I reckon the size of you,” she said to the bird, “and he would’ve roasted it on up. Some crushed rosemary, garlic, sliced apple to go with it…”

Reina looked at her blankly. Mozu had heard stories of the things Reina made and the things she ate, but hadn’t thought to believe it was true until that moment.

“I take it you’re no cook yourself.”

“Food is food. Sometimes it’s better than other times. But really, it’s not where I derive pleasure.”

Mozu dipped her head but didn’t take her eyes off Reina, spoke in a hushed voice like they were spreading secrets – “It’s killing, right?”

“Well, yes,” Reina said, voice mild, like she had put an end to a very dull story.

But Mozu inched a little closer, not speaking any louder. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You just fight without ever feeling sorry for yourself. Death wouldn’t touch a hair on your head and every battle, you got arrows flying around and going straight through people, and you’re just so…” Mozu’s hands drooped to her sides. “Not scared.”

“Stop staring.”

Mozu realized she hadn’t been looking at Reina but was curled up tight, looking at the ground. She might have been staring at the ground all along, and maybe Reina had been mad about that, and Mozu didn’t know why she’d be mad about that but if she was then she was and that was that. “Sorry.” She couldn't even hear herself.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Mozu. It’s the damn bird.”

Mozu peeked up. The bird’s dark, hopeful eyes were following Reina’s hand as she brought the jerky to her mouth. She felt a little less sick. “If you just gave it a treat, I don’t think it’d be hassling you anymore.”

Sighing, Reina chucked a bit of meat over Mozu’s head. A trill curled out of the bird’s chest and rattled Mozu’s back.

“I felt terrible the first time,” Reina said. “I built myself up for war, slaying Faceless, training every day, but killing wasn't like any of those things. When you do something unthinkable, you mope, you think, but eventually...you stop thinking the way you did before. You move on. You have no choice but to move on. Time is against us on so many things. Sometimes, however, it's on our side.”

Mozu rolled her shoulders, stiff from the cold. “I just thought I would be over it by now.”

There was a grim smile on Reina’s lips. “The guilt will come back for you time and time again, in moments you least expect. It don't think it'll ever stop, but eventually, it will hurt less.”

Was Reina an exception to that, somehow? Just abiding by without any guilt, all because she was protecting others?

She had said a lot of things, but she hadn't said _how._

“Do you know sometimes, when dinner is late? It’s cause I’m crying. In my head it’s okay, I’m just thinking normally and all, but in my body, it just starts and it won’t stop.” She just wanted to swing her hands and fight out this gesture. Her arms didn’t move. “It’s getting in everyone’s way and it’s getting everyone worried about me. And I hate that.”

“They care about you.”

“I can’t do anything for them.”

“You can fight.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore. I know I said I wanted to be stronger. I don’t think I like what that means anymore.” She looked at her, and didn’t know if Reina could read what she was asking without using words but she went and asked it anyway. “Don’t you see? If it had been anyone but _me,_ there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“You don’t think you deserved to survive.”

Some people believed in a greater plan. 

Mozu didn’t know what place she had in that.

“I feel like a cheater, Reina.” Only then did her eyes get wet. “I feel like a big old cheat.”

She hated herself for breaking down again but it suddenly cut off when Reina spoke so sharply and made Mozu jump, “You—” And she quieted herself after seeing Mozu’s reaction, “are not a cheater.”

Mozu breathed, shakily. “I don’t know about that.”

“You don’t have to know. It’s just what it is. There are many good people who have died. Soldiers who watched me grow up. And out of all those people who could have gone on, it’s me, and all I’m doing with their sacrifices and with myself is just sitting here and eating jerky.”

“I know what you’re trying to say, but I just think it’s a mistake. I don’t want to die or get killed, just…maybe it could have been better if I had been switched.”

Reina shifted herself so she really was facing Mozu, even though she didn’t emerge from that cocoon of a blanket. “Listen.” She considered her words, and said again: “Listen. It’s not worth thinking back on something that never happened. You have to think on the whole thing as it happened, and what’s happening now. Don’t even think about tomorrow. Don’t even think about what’s up this road. It’s going to take you a long time to learn how to do that, but you will. You will get up one morning and you will know it.”

Mozu listened, and the words fell into her belly like a diver plunging for ore. It still would’ve been better if it was someone else who had made it and was talking to Reina, not saddling her with all of their problems—

_Don’t even think about that._

As soon as she thought that, she thought it would have been so much easier for the old man to just think about something else—

_Don’t even think._

But then again—

_Don’t._

Because something was happening right now, wasn’t there?

“Reina?”

“Yes?”

And it jolted her, suddenly, just who she had been talking to. 

“Oh gods! I’m so sorry, I should’ve been calling you Lady all along—”

“I’m not a noblewoman.”

“Oh. Guess I shouldn’t have been so scared, huh?”

“I’m just glad I can still scare little children.” She was smirking. “Even if just for a second.”

It felt like they were on equal ground, suddenly, and that gave Mozu some muscle to say what she said next.

“I have to think about tomorrow. Sometimes it’s the only way I get through today. When I feel sick over seeing someone just my age, all the life cut out of 'em, I...I have to think we’re doing this so no one else has to dirty their hands again. I don't feel any less rotten about it, but it's all I can do.”

Reina shrugged. “You wanted to know how I am the way I am. That’s how. You’ll find another way.”

She looked like she was fixing to go back to sleep. A fist choked Mozu's heart, and she breathed in through her mouth so she could talk right. “I don’t want you killing so much you kill yourself.”

Reina stopped halfway in the middle of curling up to sleep. She didn't speak. Either because all that was a given, or because she was thinking it over. Mozu would never know. She stopped speaking only to consider her words, not to check on Reina.

“Ain't it funny you don’t believe in the future. Everyone else around you did. The queen, and, and Lady Orochi, and… I gotta say there is a future. You’re a good talk, and my mind ain’t really changed, but...I feel a little better.” 

“It’s just about waiting, Mozu. Just waiting.”

“Still, I’d sure like it a lot of if we could do this more another time. So, maybe, instead of running out and getting yourself killed, well, you could stand to be a little more careful. Okay?”

“You’re worried about me?”

“Well, yeah.”

She laughed, but it was warm and not frightening. She rolled onto her side, and seemed to think, and said, “I don’t think this rain is going to stop.”

“You’re going to be more careful?”

“I won’t be any more kind to _them,_ but yes, Mozu, I will be careful.”

Her guts felt weird, buzzing, strange, and she realized it wasn’t sickness but just relief. She wiped her palms on her dress, her lips pressing into a smile all by themselves. “I think I should be hurrying back, then.”

“You’ll catch cold.” Reina shut her eyes. “You can stay here.”

“Mother always told me I shouldn’t reject hospitality.” Mozu undid her cape; damp as it was, it wouldn’t make much of a blanket. “Even if it is a load of dirt!”

“Cheeky.”

“Just saying what you were saying." Mozu smiled to herself. "Really, this is a lot like home.”

What wasn’t like home was how the bird snuggled into the dirt, fluffing up its feathers and nudging Mozu with its beak until she settled into its fluff. It was like sinking into heaven, she thought, already sleepy. Just like heaven.

“You might as well be the one riding it,” Reina said. “It’s never done that for me in my life.”

Mozu’s eyes slipped shut. She didn’t even have it in her to yawn, but mumbled, “Try spoiling it.”

Reina just laughed again, and told her to sleep well.

\- - -

Sometimes Mozu dreamed, and sometimes she remembered.

She didn’t dream that night, and she didn’t remember.

But she did think to herself, just once before falling asleep:

_One day, it’s going to be okay._

And then, one day, it was.


End file.
